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Tag Archives: Antonin Scalia

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, December 18, 2017:

Who? Up until Thursday, few had ever heard of Neomi Rao. Looking into her background, fewer still would have predicted the role she is playing in helping President Donald Trump keep one of his most important campaign promises.

After graduating from Yale University with “highest distinction” in ethics, economics, and philosophy, she attended the University of Chicago Law School where she received her Juris Doctor degree. She was comment editor of the school’s law review and also executive editor for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

But she never drank from the cup of regulatory Kool-Aid. Instead she went on to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and from there to serve as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 2012, she received tenure from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School where she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

In other words, until Thursday, Rao was invisible.

But when Trump nominated her in April to his Office of Management and Budget with the mind-bending title of Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Jonathan Adler took notice.

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, November 13, 2017:

It took a while, but, after six months, 133 conservative leaders saw what Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was up to, and they didn’t like it. He was joining with the Democrats, especially the odious liberal Democrat Senator from New York who is the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, to keep the Trump revolution from happening. When the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to take the place of deceased Justice Antonin Scalia in April, McConnell and Schumer realized what Trump was up to: he intended to transform American judiciary to “originalists” and it looked like he certainly had the opportunity. After all there were more than a hundred vacancies and many more elder judges getting close to retirement.

It was a fantastic opportunity. Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society and informal advisor to Trump, told CBN News that Trump’s opportunity to shape the law for the next several generations is huge:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 23, 2017:

Antonin Scalia, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Cato Institute, along with the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Independence Institute, filed a “friend of the court” brief on Monday urging the Supreme Court to take under review a lower court’s decision upholding Maryland’s nearly total ban on so-called assault weapons.

Prior to passage of the Firearms Safety Act (FSA) in 2013, Maryland’s gun controls were bad enough: The law permitted those citizens “in good standing” to possess semi-automatic rifles, but only after passing an extensive (and costly) background check along with meeting various other requirements. Starting October 1, 2013, those controls became positively onerous: Any firearm designated as an “assault weapon” was banned from private possession altogether. The law included “assault long rifles,” “assault pistols,” and “copycat weapons.” That automatically included the semi-automatic (one squeeze of the trigger fires a single round) rifles that are most popular among Americans, including Marylanders, including the AR-15 and AK-47 models and knockoffs.

The new law allowed exceptions for “active law enforcement officers.”

Stephen Kolbe, a life-long resident of Maryland living in Towson, owned a “full-size semi-automatic handgun” but wanted, for self-protection purposes, to purchase one of those now-banned semi-automatic rifles. Under the new law he couldn’t, and so he, with the help of the SAF, filed suit claiming Maryland’s new law violated his Second Amendment-protected rights. He also claimed that by giving LEOs an exception, the law also violated his rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

In less than 30 minutes, President Donald Trump hit all the hot buttons, feeding red meat to thousands attending the National Rifle Association’s national convention in Atlanta on Friday.

Trump, the first sitting president to address the NRA convention since President Ronald Reagan in 1983, began by voicing his appreciation to the NRA and its membership for its and their early and generous support of his presidential campaign. The NRA first endorsed Trump for president in March 2016 and subsequently pumped $30 million into his campaign, running four times as many ads in his support than it did for Mitt Romney in 2012.

He reminded his raucous supportive audience of how the national media tried to suppress voter turnout in 2016 by repeatedly stating that

Operating at full strength for the first time since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, the Supreme Court will hold a private conference on Thursday morning to determine whether the court will address three separate but vital appeals.

The first is an appeal brought by the Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Missouri, over the denial by Missouri of the church’s request to participate in a grant program

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 15, 2017:

The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010.

In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention after becoming the Republican nominee for president, then-candidate Donald Trump reiterated the importance of the replacement of deceased Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia, stating, “The replacement of our beloved Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views, principles and judicial philosophies. Very important. This will be one of the most important issues decided by this election.”

Following Trump’s election victory in November, liberals voiced shock and consternation, especially in light of the Republican Party maintaining its majority in the branch of the legislature tasked with confirming Scalia’s replacement — the Senate. Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio declared that

For eight long years the National Rifle Association (NRA) has, along with similar groups such as the Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), largely been playing defense. The anti-gun executive orders spewing from the pen of former President Barack Obama, the anti-gun media seizing upon opportunities to promote its agenda thanks to crazed killers committing atrocities, the push to ratify the UN small arms treaty, and more have kept pro-Second Amendment groups such as these back on their heels.

No longer. Jennifer Baker, the NRA’s national spokeswoman, told The Hill on Monday:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, October 12, 2016:

Richard Cordray, Director of the runaway agency

On Tuesday the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the unconstitutional structure of one of the most pernicious, invasive, and out-of-control federal agencies: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The court’s opinion was penned by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a George Bush appointee. Sounding like a conservative constitutional scholar teaching at the Freedom Project Academy sponsored by The John Birch Society, he got off to a great start:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 26, 2016:

The United States Supreme Court in 2010.

In what could turn out to be a shrewd political move, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump expanded his list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Friday. The timing, just before the first debate on Monday night, couldn’t be better. It sets the tone and part of the conversation of that debate and puts his opponent, Democrat contender Hillary Clinton, on the defensive: She has yet to provide voters with her official list of nominees for the high court.

In addition to the 11 nominees announced back in May by the Trump campaign are the following:

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, June 28, 2016:

Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On Monday the Supreme Court handed down a ruling, 6-2, that people convicted of domestic abuse can lose their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. The only justice who even seemed to care about that was Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented. Sonia Sotomayor also dissented, for different reasons.

Two Maine residents were convicted under state law — similar to laws in 33 other states — a decade ago of committing domestic violence. When it later turned out that they owned firearms, they were charged

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, June 22, 2016:

The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010.

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented inUtah v. Strieff, a decision that was announced by the court on Monday. On the surface the decision appeared to allow an unconstitutional expansion of police powers.

In a case dating back to 2006, a narcotics detective in Salt Lake City was watching a suspected drug house. He noticed a man leaving the house and the detective stopped him, demanding to know what he was doing in the house. In the process he demanded his identification, which he forwarded to his dispatcher to run through the police database. When he learned that the man had an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation, the detective, Douglas Fackrell, arrested Edward Strieff, searched him, and found various drug-related paraphernalia.

On Tuesday liberal Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) met with Merrick Garland (see above), President Obama’s nominee to replace deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Afterward Kirk called on other senators to meet with Garland as well, to set the stage for a confirmation vote before the November election.

Reports of the meeting indicated that the topic was the Constitution. Based upon Kirk’s voting record and Garland’s judicial history, it must have been a very short meeting.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 18, 2016:

The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States in 2006.

Merrick Brian Garland, nominated by President Obama on Wednesday to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court with the untimely passing of Antonin Scalia, has left footprints. They tell of a judge who isn’t interested in supporting the rights America’s citizens enjoy under the Second Amendment.

In 2007, Garland voted to rescind a D.C. Circuit court’s decision that invalidated Washington D.C.’s strict ban against handgun ownership. That law, which even prohibited guns citizens might keep at home for self-defense, was struck down by a three-judge panel, but Garland voted

With Monday’s refusal by the Supreme Court to hear on appeal Friedman v. City of Highland Park, Illinois, the Second Amendment has, by default, suffered a grievous blow.

After the New Town, Connecticut, shooting, the Highland Park city council, following a contentious public debate, enacted a law banning possession of semi-automatic “assault rifles” similar to the one used at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It also banned possession of “high-capacity” magazines (those containing more than 10 rounds). Law-abiding citizens owning them were instantly — and now, apparently permanently — turned into criminals unless they could get rid of the now-illegal items within 60 days, as they would face either fines or jail.

Appeals by Dr. Arie Friedman and the National Rifle Association (NRA), along with those of 24 states’ attorneys general, were turned back

Following the flawed Supreme Court’s decision in Heller — District of Columbia v. Heller — virulent anti-gun members of D.C.’s city council enacted “every gun restriction they could find from every other state and gave them to us as thumbtacks on the road to our march to Second Amendment freedom,” according to plaintiff Dick Heller.

The original 2008 decision, although widely celebrated as a victory for the Second Amendment by the National Rifle Association since it guaranteed, in writing, an individual’s right to possess a firearm, left so many loopholes, thanks to Justice Antonin Scalia’s commentary, that

This article was published at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, September 21, 2015:

Justice Antonin Scalia

The results of the annual survey, “Best States for Gun Owners 2015,” just released in July, showed little change at the top, or the bottom, of the states’ ranking: Washington, DC still ranks dead last, while Arizona continues at the top of all states for gun freedom. In its introduction, G and A noted:

After serving jail time for committing an armed robbery, Steven Denson was out on parole. When he failed to report to his parole officer, authorities, after an intensive search, were about to conclude that Denson was gone for good.

Eventually, however, they found that Denson had opened an account for utilities services in Wichita, Kansas. Police obtained an arrest warrant and went out to see if he was home. It had just snowed and they noted footprints in the backyard and the utility meter spinning, giving them reasonable cause to believe that Denson was home.

This article first appeared at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 25, 2014:

Larry Pratt at a political conference in Reno, Nevada.

Following publication of a blatant hit piece by Rolling Stone on Gun Owners of America (GOA) Executive Director Larry Pratt on July 14, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), representing New York City’s boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, felt personally threatened, and called the cops. Maloney’s staff called the Capitol Police and the House sergeant-at-arms, Paul Irving, to say that Pratt’s comments published by Rolling Stone could be taken as a